Subtitles and Transcript

Homaro Cantu + Ben Roche

0:11
Ben Roche: So I'm Ben, by the way.Homaro Cantu: And I'm Homaro.BR: And we're chefs. So when Motoopened in 2004, people didn't really knowwhat to expect. A lot of people thoughtthat it was a Japanese restaurant, andmaybe it was the name, maybe it wasthe logo, which was like a Japanesecharacter, but anyway, we had all theserequests for Japanese food, which isreally not what we did. And after aboutthe ten thousandth request for a maki roll,we decided to give the peoplewhat they wanted. So this picture isan example of printed food, and this wasthe first foray into what we like to callflavor transformation. So this is allthe ingredients, all the flavor of, you know,a standard maki roll, printed ontoa little piece of paper.

0:51
HC: So our diners started to get boredwith this idea, and we decided to give themthe same course twice, so here we actuallytook an element from the maki roll andand took a picture of a dish and thenbasically served that picture with the dish.So this dish in particular is basicallychampagne with seafood.The champagne grapes that you see areactually carbonated grapes. A little bit ofseafood and some crème fraiche and thepicture actually tastes exactly like the dish. (Laughter)BR: But it's not all just edible pictures.We decided to do somethinga little bit different and transform flavorsthat were very familiar -- so in this case,we have carrot cake.So we take a carrot cake, put itin a blender, and we have kind of likea carrot cake juice, and then that went intoa balloon frozen in liquid nitrogen to createthis hollow shell of carrot cakeice cream, I guess, and it comes offlooking like, you know,Jupiter's floating around your plate.

1:46
So yeah, we're transforming things intosomething that you have absolutelyno reference for.HC: And here's something we have noreference to eat. This is a cigar, andbasically it's a Cuban cigar made out ofa Cuban pork sandwich, so we take thesespices that go into the pork shoulder,we fashion that into ash. We takethe sandwich and wrap it up ina collard green, put an edible labelthat bears no similarity toa Cohiba cigar label, and we put itin a dollar ninety-nine ashtray and chargeyou about twenty bucks for it. (Laughter)HC: Delicious.

2:19
BR: That's not it, though.Instead of making foods thatlook like things that you wouldn't eat,we decided to make ingredientslook like dishes that you know.So this is a plate of nachos.The difference between our nachosand the other guy's nachos,is that this is actually a dessert.So the chips are candied,the ground beef is made from chocolate,and the cheese is made from a shreddedmango sorbet that gets shreddedinto liquid nitrogen to look like cheese.And after doing all of thisdematerialization and reconfiguringof this, of these ingredients, we realizedthat it was pretty cool,because as we served it, we learned thatthe dish actually behaves like the real thing,where the cheese begins to melt.So when you're looking at this thingin the dining room, you have this sensationthat this is actually a plate of nachos,and it's not really until you begin tasting itthat you realize this is a dessert, andit's just kind of like a mind-ripper.(Laughter)

3:18
HC: So we had been creatingall of these dishes out of akitchen that was more likea mechanic's shop than a kitchen, andthe next logical step for us was to installa state-of-the-art laboratory,and that's what we have here.So we put this in the basement, and wegot really serious about food, likeserious experimentation.BR: One of the really cool things aboutthe lab, besides that we have a newscience lab in the kitchen, is that,you know, with this new equipment, andthis new approach, all thesedifferent doors to creativity that we neverknew were there began to open, and so theexperiments and the food and the dishesthat we created, they just kept goingfurther and further out there.

3:59
HC: Let's talk about flavor transformation,and let's actually make some cool stuff.You see a cow with its tongue hanging out.What I see is a cow about to eat somethingdelicious. What is that cow eating?And why is it delicious?So the cow, basically, eats three basicthings in their feed: corn, beets, and barley,and so what I do is I actuallychallenge my staff with these crazy,wild ideas. Can we take what the coweats, remove the cow, and then makesome hamburgers out of that?And basically the reaction tends to bekind of like this. (Laughter)BR: Yeah, that's our chef de cuisine,Chris Jones. This is not the only guythat just flips out when we assigna ridiculous task, but a lot of these ideas,they're hard to understand.They're hard to just get automatically.

4:46
There's a lot of research and a lot offailure, trial and error -- I guess, more error --that goes into each and every dish,so we don't always get it right, and it takesa while for us to be able to explain thatto people.HC: So, after about a day of Chris and Istaring at each other, we came up withsomething that was pretty closeto the hamburger patty, and as you cansee it basically forms like hamburger meat.This is made from three ingredients:beets, barley, corn, and so itactually cooks up like hamburger meat,looks and tastes like hamburger meat,and not only that, but it's basicallyremoving the cow from the equation.So replicating food, taking it into thatnext level is where we're going.(Applause)

5:32
BR: And it's definitely the world's firstbleeding veggie burger,which is a cool side effect.And a miracle berry, if you're not familiarwith it, is a natural ingredient, and itcontains a special property.It's a glycoprotein called miraculin,a naturally occurring thing. It still freaksme out every time I eat it, but it has aunique ability to mask certain tastereceptors on your tongue, so that primarilysour taste receptors, so normally thingsthat would taste very sour or tart,somehow begin to taste very sweet.HC: You're about to eat a lemon,and now it tastes like lemonade.Let's just stop and think about theeconomic benefits of something like that.We could eliminate sugar across the boardfor all confectionary products and sodas,and we can replace it withall-natural fresh fruit.

6:18
BR: So you see us here cutting upsome watermelon. The idea with thisis that we're going to eliminate tons offood miles, wasted energy,and overfishing of tuna by creating tuna,or any exotic produce or itemfrom a very far-away place,with local, organic produce;so we have a watermelon from Wisconsin.HC: So if miracle berries take sour thingsand turn them into sweet things,we have this other pixie dustthat we put on the watermelon, and itmakes it go from sweet to savory.So after we do that, we put it intoa vacuum bag, add a little bit of seaweed,some spices, and we roll it, and thisstarts taking on the appearance of tuna.So the key now is to make itbehave like tuna.BR: And then after a quick dip into someliquid nitrogen to get that perfect sear,we really have something that looks,tastes and behaves like the real thing.

7:15
HC: So the key thing to remember here is,we don't really carewhat this tuna really is.As long as it's good for you and good forthe environment, it doesn't matter.But where is this going?How can we take this idea of tricking yourtastebuds and leapfrog it into somethingthat we can do today that could bea disruptive food technology?So here's the next challenge.I told the staff, let's just take a bunchof wild plants, think of them asfood ingredients. As long as they'renon-poisonous to the human body,go out around Chicago sidewalks,take it, blend it, cook it and thenhave everybody flavor-trip on it at Moto.Let's charge them a boatload of cash for thisand see what they think. (Laughter)

8:00
BR: Yeah, so you can imagine, a tasklike this -- this is another one of thoseassignments that the kitchen staffhated us for. But we really had to almostrelearn how to cook in general,because these are ingredients, you know,plant life that we're, one, unfamiliar with,and two, we have no reference for howto cook these things becausepeople don't eat them.So we really had to think about new, creative waysto flavor, new ways to cookand to change texture -- and that wasthe main issue with this challenge.

8:29
HC: So this is where we step into the futureand we leapfrog ahead.So developing nationsand first-world nations,imagine if you could take these wild plantsand consume them, food miles wouldbasically turn into food feet.This disruptive mentality of what food iswould essentially open up the encyclopediaof what raw ingredients are, even if we justswapped out, say, one of these for flour,that would eliminate so much energyand so much waste.And to give you a simple example here as towhat we actually fed these customers,there's a bale of hay thereand some crab apples.And basically we took hay and crab applesand made barbecue sauce out of those two ingredients.People swore they were eatingbarbecue sauce, and this is free food.BR: Thanks, guys.